Pod

Pod (2023) by Laline Paull was completely unique, gripping, and heartbreaking. It’s Paull’s third novel, and I’m going to put her other books on my TBR list, as I understand they are unique as well.

The book starts out from Ea’s perspective. She is a young adult spinner dolphin, part of a dolphin pod who had been driven out of their home waters by a larger pod of bottlenose, or Tursiops, dolphins. Ea is a good hunter, safe in the pod and still close to her mother, but she has one problem–she cannot hear the music of the ocean and thus cannot spin like all of the others. Sometimes she hears other noises, painful and frightening. One day she hears a whalesong, full of grief and heartache.

Next we meet Devi, the primary wife of the dominant male in the Tursiops megapod. As in many societies where the females are subservient to the males, Devi skillfully manipulates others as her means of survival. The Tursiops also feed on a kind of fish, sarpa, that has a narcotic effect that helps them deal with the loudness of the demons in their home water, and sarpa is strictly rationed by the dominant male, Lord Ku.

Finally, we meet Google, a lone bottlenose dolphin who is severely injured because of his work with the human military. He had a human handler, who had not survived, but Google is accidentally released from his captivity during a cyclone and is frantic to return to base, as that’s really all he knows.

There are a few other characters, including a remorafish who attaches herself to Ea, to Ea’s horror, and a wrasse who was a dominant male but there is something strange in the water that is making him change to become female.

Eventually, all of these characters come to the same place and interact to deal with the challenges of the changing ocean–changed primarily due to human behaviors, and not for the better. There is death and destruction all around–and it’s not clear where anyone can go for it to be better.

There are several difficult scenes, including rape and an out-and-out bloody battle. But there is much to love–I loved reading about Ea’s joy in moving through the water, at the chatter of the dolphins and their communication with one another, and the hope that they would find sanctuary somewhere in the ocean.

I think this year is my year of reading books that include animal perspectives–so far this is my third, after Remarkably Bright Creatures, and Lessons in Chemistry, and I’m OK with that. If you’re looking for something different, and that will challenge any human-centered thoughts about ocean inhabitants, I’d highly recommend Pod.